Friday, February 5, 2016

Not only is it silly to think that a junior mining company or a law firm would try to find out Otto Rock's identity by googling "who is Otto Rock", but it's also silly to think that the mining company that used to have Alex Black as a CEO would have to resort to using google.

Nevertheless, I've decided to help the detectives out by posting a photograph of the real Otto Rock, below the fold. Don't click through if you don't care, there's nothing there for you to see and I'm definitely not going to do anything funny.

New Deal Demoncrat - finally a good report for wages. And you want wages to go up, since consumption is over 50% of the US economy. And by the way, when 151k jobs are added but NILF goes up 87k, that reduces upward pressure on wages, and the people at the Fed know this because (except for Neel Kashkari) they took undergrad macroeconomics, you dumb white-ass honkie crackers.

Reformed Borker (Bork Bork Bork!) - jobs report defies recession chatter. I really can't fucking believe that people are calling for a recession: do you not look at one fucking ounce of data? Do you not know what a leading indicator is? I can't believe people are this stupid, even coked-up hedge fund crackers, so it must just be that media idiots with journalism diplomas are just looking for a narrative to spin that explains why the US market is down A WHOPPING TEN PERCENT.

the deviations of the P/E from its historical average are in fact quite modest. But suppose that we see them as significant, that we believe they indicate the expected return on stocks is unusually low relative to history. Is it low with respect to the expected return on other assets? A central aspect of the crisis has been the decrease in the interest rate on bonds, short and long. According to the yield curve, interest rates are expected to remain quite low for the foreseeable future. The expected return on stocks may be lower than it used to be, but so is the expected return on bonds.

Like I've constantly fucking said: there is one heck of a lot of ownership of UST10s yielding 1.88%. Why would you do this when you can own GE yielding 3.24%? Or how about AT&T yielding 5.32%? Or even McDonalds yielding 2.87%? Stocks, when viewed as yield instruments, are cheap relative to bonds, and a screaming deal if you have the slightest fucking clue about what a leading indicator of recession is. But now, don't listen to Olivier Blanchard, listen to Kyle Bass.

Money and Banking - an interview with Narayana Kocherlakota. Unfortunately he's not all that bright, since he calls for significantly less regulatory oversight for global finance, which will only mean yet more money drawn out of the productive economy by the ruling kleptocrats and buried in tax-haven accounts in USTs.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Busy studying for midterms, or at least that's what I'm telling myself.

Here's some news:

FT Alphaville - the unstoppable tide of Japan yield seekers. Negative rates in Japan have a transmission mechanism to the rest of the world. Now tell me again why you'd rather hold UST10s at 2% when you can buy GE and get 3%?

Lowry Interpreter - another perspective on China and debt. Michael Pettis has been getting a lot of ink recently, despite his opinion having been worthless to guide your investment dollars over the past 5 years.

Bloomberg - this is why you don't try to short the yuan. China attacked the yuan shorts with military zest a couple weeks ago. So anyone still actively shorting yuan at this point, thinking it's an easy stroll into the history books alongside Soros' breaking of the pound, is a clueless idiot who may just be manifesting malignant narcissism due to an extreme coke addiction. Personally, if I had been dumb enough to give these clowns my money to manage, I'd withdraw it all this instant.